


If For A Moment

by unorigelnal (jayburding)



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 20:24:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1955037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayburding/pseuds/unorigelnal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim sits with Dick through the night. Based on <a href="http://kaciart.tumblr.com/post/28178005574">this</a> piece by Kaciart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If For A Moment

“If he survives the night.”

Tim is surprised Bruce doesn’t hit him for that. Optimism isn’t something that comes naturally to Tim, certainly not anymore, and he is sure the same is true of Bruce. It is, to an extent, but the idea that Dick might not survive is possibly the only outcome Bruce has never considered in all the potential scenarios he prepares for. Tim… Tim is too used to people dying on him for that.

Tim sits beside Dick’s bed and takes his hand, more as a reassurance for himself than for Dick if he’s honest, which he rarely is. Bruce moves to and fro, in that too precise way that means he’s over thinking how frantic he is. He can’t leave with Dick like this, but there’s still Gotham to think of, and patrols that haven’t been run. Loyalty to city and family is splitting him down the middle, and one of them has to give.

“I’ll stay,” Tim says.  _If you need to go._ He doesn’t finish the sentence, even if it is true. Bruce probably wouldn’t forgive him if he did.

It looks as if Bruce means to instruct him to call if anything happens, but there’s only one thing that’s really going to happen tonight, if anything, and Bruce can’t acknowledge it, just like he couldn’t earlier. Tim promises to follow an order he isn’t given, and watches the Batmobile depart, knowing that he’s lying. He holds onto Dick’s hand and prays, or something like it, that it doesn’t come to that.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he’s going on three days now since he last slept, even if they only recovered Dick a few hours ago. He tries everything he knows to keep awake that doesn’t involve moving away from the bed, but exhaustion creeps up on him so quietly that he misses when his eyes close, when his head dips to rest against Dick’s shoulder, when his breathing matches the steady sound of the heart monitor and everything else just slips away.

Tim stirs to the muffled sound of crying.

Dick sobs, one hand curled over his eyes as if he can erase his new reality by simply not looking. Despite his attempts to conceal them, tears escape the cage of his fingers and trace salty lines down his cheeks. His other hand is warm in Tim’s grasp and still gentle, though Tim can feel the tension there where Dick is restraining himself from gripping too tight, holding onto Tim until his bones creak because Dick is drowning and the only lifeline is Tim’s hand in his.

He doesn’t move immediately, though it feels like an intrusion to be witnessing Dick’s grief so close without him realising. Tim needs this moment though, just a moment to revel in the fact that Dick is still alive, that the hand in his and the shoulder beneath his head are blisteringly warm compared with the chill of the cave around them. Just a moment, and then he can face Dick without his relief splitting hysterically over his face.

Tim doesn’t say anything to let Dick know he’s awake, he just tightens his grip on Dick’s hand. He hears Dick choke, strangling on his tears as he tries to shut them away. They’re all like that, too quick to hide, to pretend everything is fine when it couldn’t possibly be, as if pain is something to be ashamed of. Maybe they learnt that lesson far too well from Bruce.

He tucks his head into Dick’s shoulder, squeezes his hand again because the words to say it’s ok for Dick to fall apart would be too hypocritical out loud. Dick has to know it because Tim can’t say it. His breathing stutters and his tears dry on his cheeks, the next wave a blurry shimmer on the brink of his eyelids, but he squeezes back, clinging onto Tim’s hand though he can’t look at him yet.

They stay like that for a while, Tim a silent witness to Dick’s more and more fractured attempts to hold himself together. They don’t address the empty space beneath the sheets; not yet. It’s just another thing that can’t be put into words, so Tim settles for something easier, barely a platitude.

“Everything will be ok, Dick,” he lies, and freezes at the sound of his own voice. His words deafen him, echoing too strange and loud for this scene that is becoming more and more unreal as Dick raises his tearstained face to look at him.

Tim doesn’t hear Dick’s reply. He watches his lips move, but there is no sound after the heavy reality of his own voice. He realises he’s dreaming, and the scene vanishes like a burst soap bubble.

The shriek of the heart monitor is what really wakes him.

Dick’s hand is still in his, fingers slack. The only warmth there comes from Tim.

It was tenuous, he knew that before. Everything rested on the fragile balance of one word.

_“If he survives the night.”_

Tim leans over and shut the heart monitor off, never letting go of Dick’s hand. The silence presses in around them, but for the hammer-beat of Tim’s heart, the scratch of his breathing which is no less claustrophobic as he struggles not to choke.

Tim climbs up on the bed beside Dick. He would never have done it before, too careful of injuries and personal space to dare, even though Dick rarely had time for personal space as a concept, especially when hurt. Now though, now Tim needs to be close, closer than just clinging to Dick’s hand. He’s looking for reassurance where there isn’t any, trying to hold back the reality encroaching on him in that awful silence.

He curls against Dick’s side and tries not to think of how still Dick is, tries not to think about how he’s far, far too familiar with the feeling of warmth slowly vanishing from a person’s skin. If he keeps quiet, just a little longer, he can have a few more moments where he still has a big brother. There’s room for ignorance, now that the heart monitor is off; just for a few more moments.

He’s still there when Bruce returns.


End file.
